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Ontario’s sex-education controversy appears to have claimed the jobs of three teachers in a Toronto neighbourhood where upset parents keeping their kids out of school have reduced the need for as many classes as planned.

At Thorncliffe Park Public School, an early September boycott of nearly 800 students over the revised curriculum dwindled as parents gradually brought their kids back to school, but when the last 100 still failed to show up by mid-October, the school was forced to dissolve two Grade 1 classes and declare two long-term occasional teachers as “surplus.”

“It’s disappointing for sure, but we know some of these students are attending Muslim schools and others are being home-schooled so it appears they’re learning,” said Thorncliffe Park Principal Jeff Crane. With an enrolment of about 1,260 students from kindergarten to Grade 5, Thorncliffe is still the largest elementary school in Canada, even though the number of Grade 1 classes has dropped to 13 from 15.

Crane said a makeshift “school” for hundreds of students in a nearby park in early fall run by parents and volunteers appears to have closed down, which he found encouraging because it suggests the children are in more organized educational settings.

At nearby Valley Park Middle School about 90 fewer students showed up than expected, about a dozen of whom are now believed to be being home-schooled because their parents oppose the revised health curriculum, said Principal Kevin Battaglia. As a result of the drop in numbers, the school collapsed one Grade 6 class and declared one teacher surplus.

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“Some of the parents said they have chosen to send their children to private (religious) schools, so it’s not clear whether this is due to their understanding of the curriculum, but I would think there’s a strong link between (anger over) the revised health curriculum and those being home-schooled,” said Battaglia.

Parents across the province boycotted school this fall and last spring over concerns that the revised health and physical education curriculum is too explicit for young children, and also “promotes” homosexuality.

In a bid to debunk myths about the curriculum for parents of children at his school, Crane has been running afternoon information sessions in the staff room for parents — three classes at a time; he’s finished the Grade 1s and is partway through the Grade 2 parents — to explain just what children really will be taught.

“First off, I tell them it’s not actually a sex-education curriculum — it’s largely about healthy living, with a subsection about human development and sexual health, but Omigod, we’re not teaching sex-ed to Grade 1s!” he said. In Grade 1 children are taught the proper names of body parts, including genitalia, but it is one small part of a larger focus on healthy living.

“We have to correct the misinformation what many parents have heard or read, so I explain the children will remain clothed in class and aren’t actually showing each other their private parts, but are actually being taught that private parts are to be kept private,” said Crane. “It’s about safety.”

School boards have told parents they have the right to keep their children from the handful of lessons on human development if they violate their religious beliefs, but students cannot be excused from any discussion of human rights or equality for those of different gender identities.

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